Kennen Sie schon … das „Footprints Project“?

Foot­prints traces the his­to­ry and move­ment of Jew­ish books since the incep­tion of print.

The his­to­ry of the book is an impor­tant part of human­i­ties schol­ar­ship. Espe­cial­ly as more books are dig­i­tized, schol­ars, librar­i­ans, col­lec­tors, and oth­ers have become increas­ing­ly attuned to the sig­nif­i­cance of indi­vid­ual books as objects with their own unique sto­ry. Jew­ish books in par­tic­u­lar tell a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry about the spread of knowl­edge and faith in a glob­al Dias­po­ra.

Every lit­er­ary work rep­re­sents a moment in time and space where an idea was con­ceived and doc­u­ment­ed. But the his­to­ry of a book con­tin­ues long after com­po­si­tion as it is bought, sold, shared, read, con­fis­cat­ed, stored, or even dis­card­ed. This his­to­ry is the essence of Foot­prints.

Foot­prints is a data­base to track the cir­cu­la­tion of print­ed „Jew­ish books.“ Much infor­ma­tion about the move­ment of ear­ly print­ed books exists, but in scat­tered form. All of these indi­vid­ual pieces of data can con­nect to each oth­er in order to build up a com­pos­ite view of the move­ment of Jew­ish texts and ideas from place to place and across time.

Das Pro­jek­t­team ist auch auf Twit­ter vertreten.